Karen Schroedter of Sugar Grove found her way to the Big Rock Plowing Match festival in Big Rock on Saturday morning, an event she has come to for years.
“I just love it here. The small town, the history of it,” Schroedter said. “I love to watch the plowing match. My grandparents were farmers and there is a little nostalgia to it all. I think people are still coming because of the history of the area and a lot of local people like to come back.”
The three-day Big Rock Plowing Match festival, a 130-year-old annual event held Friday through Sunday, remains a huge tradition in town.
Denise Farrugia, board member for the Big Rock Plowing Match Association, spoke Friday about the opening of the annual festival and said local excitement remains unabated.
“This is opening day and it’s really exciting. The grounds look amazing and the vendors have been setting up today and the spaces are filling up,” Farrugia said a few hours before the opening at 5 p.m. Friday. “The carnival rides are all in place and it’s just always exciting when the kids come to the park.”
Farrugia said once again, the festival kicked off with kids lining up their bikes at the firehouse at 4:15 p.m. and then “riding almost a mile ride and arriving at the park just in time for the carnival rides to start at 5 p.m.”
Saturday’s program included the first rounds of the plowing match that were already underway at 9:30 a.m. as well as a horse show, train rides, a petting zoo and children’s activities.
Jerry Thomas of Batavia looked over the field where the plowing matches were taking place Saturday morning and said that “the matches have been a part of Big Rock for over 120 years and my family was raised in this area.”
“They actually had roots in the very first plowing match and in the past I’ve plowed here myself. This is the first time I haven’t,” Thomas said. “It’s just been a part of our fall outings and programs for 30 years. This is a reconnection with my family and roots. It’s a homecoming.”
Thomas added that originally, the plowing match “was a sporting event, a social event for the community and there were high stakes for the winners and everyone else.”
“Everyone tried to come out and have a little competition,” he said. “As far as people who have never seen them before, it’s not super-exciting although this year we have a team of horses. Most all the tractors are old from the 1930s to ’50s, and a lot of people here are descendants of original plowing people.”
Meghan Zimmerman of Waterman brought her two children to the plowing match and said this was her first time.
“We brought my son Emmett, who is 6. He thought the tractors would be fast but I told him it’s what they can do,” she said.
Kids and parents found a little more action down the road on the festival grounds where an egg toss was underway just before 11 a.m. Saturday that predictably ended with everyone getting egg on their face – or hands – except Andrew Hermann, 12, who was seen kissing his egg in triumph.
“My secret is, just to believe. You just gotta believe,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
